View this post on Instagram

Slow to upload my last lullaby from a few weeks back... thanks to those who tuned in and chatted with me, it was lovely to connect again 💜 This is an Edith Piaf cover, a song about being in love and seeing life through rose-colored glasses (en rose), all else falling away. I love the resilience and hope in Piaf's music - no matter how sentimental, there is always such grit to her vulnerability.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on May 23, 2020 at 3:40am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Last one for now, a Fever Ray song. I love this album so much, when I first heard it I think I played nothing else for at least two months. I will start these again soon. just recognised I was feeling a bit burnt out and overwhelmed and need to take a moment to regroup. Hope you are all doing okay out there. 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 16, 2020 at 4:13am PDT

View this post on Instagram

(Needing a couple of days to retreat from the world but uploading the last few lullabies in the meantime) This Sting song was a request from @sighmon, which took me back to being super obsessed with this Nothing Like The Sun album when I discovered it at I think twelve? And then I went on to delve into The Police and loved them so much too, such intense memories! That was when I really fell wildly in love with what music could do and how it could make people feel. So basically it's Sting's fault I became a singer ... 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 16, 2020 at 4:02am PDT

View this post on Instagram

(Repost coz my fuzzy brain posted a cropped version earlier sorry!) Another one from the childhood vaults - I discovered my parents vinyl of Carole King's Tapestry and played it over and over as a teenager. The songs about the loneliness of being on the road ironically feel kind of apt when I'm anything but on the road... also good to sing when my voice is all tired and husky ☺️

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 16, 2020 at 5:24am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Saturday's lullaby was another from the American Songbook - I seem to be falling back on these on nights I'm struggling a little - they're the songs I don't have to think about at all, maybe because when I was a teenager I thought I wanted to be a jazz singer and listened obsessively to Ella, Billie, etc... the lyrics are very old fashioned but still, at times like these the idea of watching over each other feels pretty important. 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 13, 2020 at 6:27pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Good Friday's lullaby was requested by @lovelypandaok 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 12, 2020 at 7:54pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

(Slowly uploading this week's lullabies) - this one was a tough day for me, you can probably tell just by looking. I sang a yearning lil song I wrote back when I was seventeen, and ended up releasing under the name Orisha. Seems like another life, now, remembering that time.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 12, 2020 at 5:24am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Wednesday night's Pink Moon put Nick Drake into my head. Messed up the melody a little, sorry to any purists ☺️

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 11, 2020 at 5:51am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Last night's lullaby (#19) was from #2 of influential albums I posted today, Homogenic. The first time I heard this, in 1997, a friend texted me excitedly that she had the new Bjork album, and to meet her in the city so she could play it to me immediately. And we sat on a bench in Swanston St, listening to it with one earbud each from her discman (remember those?!) It was such a lush and wildly romantic sound. This is one of the more delicate tracks from that album, it speaks to all those separated from their loved ones right now. 'When you come back, we'll have to make new love' 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 7, 2020 at 9:21pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Isolation Lullaby #18 was a kd lang song. Seems apt for these times, everyone is experiencing a little (or a lot) of yearning, and finding someone brave marching beneath their skin. As a plus, this song is such a joy to sing, the way it swoops so fluidly. 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 7, 2020 at 9:13pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

A Nick Cave song. I used to listen to this album over and over when it came out (No More Shall We Part) and it came into my head yesterday so I revisited it. This is by far the most 'normal' track, but there are also some gloriously surreal moments on this strange and lovely album.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 6, 2020 at 5:52am PDT

View this post on Instagram

RIP Bill Withers. x

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 4, 2020 at 3:49am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A lil husky last night with a wee cold! A Terence Trent D'Arby song.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 3, 2020 at 3:38pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Kate Bush released this song in 1989, which kind of blows my mind! I've been thinking about how much we are all relying on our computers now, whether for work, or obsessively checking statistics or scrolling through social media and news - but also, it is now more than ever before our direct source of friendship, love and understanding, the way we are connecting and sharing resources and help and support.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 2, 2020 at 5:10am PDT

View this post on Instagram

For Lullaby #13 I picked a Beyonce song that I cannot listen to without feeling a deep sense of joy. There's something about it that just lifts my energy no matter how down I am. After the lows of the day before I was working hard to focus on the things I'm grateful for. Even the strangely beautiful things that have emerged from this crisis - the surge in people baking, gardening, adopting dogs and cats and chickens, watching marble races instead of footy, and all the caregiving and socialist action happening on such a global scale. I don't think my acapella can possibly capture the pure joy of the original so for those few who don't already know it, go watch the video now and try not to smile the whole way through 💜☺️

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 2, 2020 at 4:59am PDT

View this post on Instagram

This was a tough night for me. I leant on another old Gershwin song, a lullaby my dad used to sing me when I was little. He'd always sing it through twice so he could gender swap the lyrics, telling me my mama was rich and my papa was goodlooking, so I did that here too. I am all hunched over in this video because I was clutching a cushion to me for comfort like I was in a therapy session! 😩💞 I very almost didn't sing that night. But doing this every night is helping me so much, so I managed it somehow. I hope you're all finding something to keep you going too. x

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 2, 2020 at 4:50am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Anxiety or exhaustion had me all breathless while singing Lullaby #11, luckily this Taylor Swift song kinda suits a delicate delivery. I really adore this song (and the production on the original is just gorgeous) - I love a love song that emphasises friendship (they're so rare!) and this song appeals to the romantic in me whose heart is melted far more by kindnesses like lending a glove or listening to someone when they're stressed, than by wild gestures or declarations of obsessive devotion. Friendship is definitely what is getting me through all of this, the exchange of checking in with each other, and helping where we can. Also, sung for the nostalgia of times not so long ago when reaching out to touch someone's hand was an act of love, while now holding back from that is the most loving thing we can do.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 2, 2020 at 4:38am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Lullaby #10 is a Gershwin standard. On nights when getting on the mic is a challenge, I'm falling back on songs I know by heart, and this is one of them. The lyrics are very much of their era, but also feel relevant now - mutual love and support seem to be more important than ever, and I hope that is very much here to stay 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 2, 2020 at 4:26am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Isolation Lullaby #9 is my favourite Joni Mitchell song, it comes into my head every time I fly. I love how the melody and the lyrics seem to skirt around a resolution but never quite reach one. Also, while editing the live video down to just the song, I kept seeing my earnest face and remembering that awkward scene in The Kids Are Alright when Annette Bening sings 'All I Want' and it made me giggle a lot. 😂 But, I will always be unapologetically earnest for this song 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Apr 1, 2020 at 6:11pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Friday night's lullaby is one of my favourite Peter Gabriel songs, written about the poet Anne Sexton apparently. I don't know much about Sexton but it's certainly a haunting yet in some ways peaceful song, even in the spiritual and psychological restlessness and yearning the lyrics evoke, there is also a stillness and quietness that I find calming. The original has such beautiful delicate production, I highly recommend giving it a listen.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 30, 2020 at 3:45am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Requested by @googligug 💜 Thursday night's lullaby.

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 29, 2020 at 9:56pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Wednesday's lullaby is an INXS song - not the one you might have heard me cover before (Need you tonight), but this is a gentle ballad good for dark lonely times 💜 What are your other favourite Antipodean songs?

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 28, 2020 at 1:07am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Tuesday night's lullaby is a Eurythmics song, they're one of my all time favourite bands and Annie Lennox is my vocal idol 🙏 Tried to pick one of their gentler, less bleak songs for you! 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 27, 2020 at 6:37pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Monday night's lullaby - have loved this one since I first saw The Color Purple. Normally a song I'd belt out, but have sung a gentler version for you. This one goes out to my sister Blake. 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 24, 2020 at 8:36pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

Last night's lullaby, a little late. This is an old Paul Simon song I've loved since I was a kid. he imagines the painter Magritte and his wife and dog, in little peacetime scenes, dancing naked in a hotel room to doo wop music, window-shopping, etc. For me it's simply about the importance of music (the four doo wop groups named in the chorus are 'the deep forbidden music they'd been longing for' - black or Jewish music was banned under Nazi rules) Yesterday was a really rough one, but sticking with the lullaby routine helped ground me a lot, and confirmed for me I'm going to really try to do this every night while the lockdowns last, no matter how bad a day has been, I'll be showing up. Hope you are all holding up okay with good people looking out for you 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 23, 2020 at 4:12am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Tonight's lullaby is a song by Tori Amos. I first heard the album it's from, Under The Pink, when I was a teenager, and was obsessed, it's so beautiful. I'm not really sure what the song is about, but it seems somehow apt for this moment in time. (Editing the live video down to just the song I realised it looks like I am naked below the waist! I promise I am simply wearing a skirt with a high split ☺️) I hope listening to these songs is helping ground you as much as singing them to you is helping me. It is so lovely seeing your names and messages pop up on my screen. I can feel my whole nervous system calming down over these few minutes, I hope you feel that too. 💜💜💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 21, 2020 at 3:57am PDT

View this post on Instagram

First attempt at streaming then saving Live went a bit pear shaped, so forgive the shoddy audio of this screen recording. Fingers crossed tomorrow I can find that 'save' button! Singing is such a lifeline for me. When I started this song I was quite anxious (aren't we all!) and my hands and voice were shaking. By the time I reached the end I felt calm and happy. I hope it helps a bit. I'll post another of my favourite songs tomorrow night. One I'm guessing most people won't know, unlike this one! Much love to everyone out there. 💜

A post shared by Emah Fox (@emahfox) on Mar 20, 2020 at 2:32am PDT